The Philippines’ Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Suggested List of Issues Relating to the Death Penalty

Submitted by The Advocates for Human Rights

a non-governmental organization in special consultative status with ECOSOC since 1996
and
The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

128th Session of the Human Rights Committee

2–27 March 2020

Submitted 13 January 2020

The Advocates for Human Rights (The Advocates) is a volunteer-based non-governmental

organization committed to the impartial promotion and protection of international human rights
standards and the rule of law. Established in 1983, The Advocates conducts a range of programs
to promote human rights in the United States and around the world, including monitoring and
fact finding, direct legal representation, education and training, and publications. In 1991, The
Advocates adopted a formal commitment to oppose the death penalty worldwide and organized
the Death Penalty Project to provide pro bono assistance on post-conviction appeals, as well as
education and advocacy to end capital punishment. The Advocates currently holds a seat on the
Steering Committee of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), an alliance of more than 150
NGOs, bar associations, local authorities, and unions, was created in Rome on 13 May 2002. The
aim of the World Coalition is to strengthen the international dimension of the fight against the
death penalty. Its ultimate objective is to obtain the universal abolition of the death penalty. To
achieve its goal, the World Coalition advocates for a definitive end to death sentences and
executions in those countries where the death penalty is in force. In some countries, it is seeking
to obtain a reduction in the use of capital punishment as a first step towards abolition.

The Advocates for Human Rights • 330 Second Avenue South • Suite 800 • Minneapolis, MN 55401 • USA
Tel: 612-341-3302 • Fax: 612-341-2971 • Email: [email protected] • www.TheAdvocatesForHumanRights.org
 The Philippines is at risk of backsliding on its obligations under Article 6 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Second Optional Protocol

1. The Philippines ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights in 2007. Yet lawmakers have flouted Article 6 and the Protocol by taking
steps to reinstate the death penalty.
2. In its 2012 Concluding Observations, the Committee urged the Government of the
Philippines to “take all necessary measures to ensure legal clarity on the status of the
Covenant in domestic law,” and “to raise awareness of the Covenant among judges, lawyers
and prosecutors to ensure that its provisions are taken into account by national courts.”1
3. In the context of the right to life under Article 6, the State Party’s Fifth Periodic Report
references the creation of an Inter-Agency Committee on Extra-Legal Killings, Enforced
Disappearances, Torture and Other Grave Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and
Security of Persons, as well as a Presidential task force on Violations of the Right to Life,
Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media,2 but makes no reference to recent efforts
to reinstate the death penalty. The report’s discussion of awareness-raising activities targeting
judges, lawyers, and prosecutors similarly references “capacity-building activities on
International Humanitarian Law” and “trainings on handling of cases involving EJKs, Eds,
torture, and other grave violation of the right to life, liberty and security,”3 but does not
address the death penalty.
4. In 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives of the Philippines and the President of the Senate of the Philippines to
remind them that “[i]international law does not permit a State that has ratified or acceded to
the Second Optional Protocol to denounce it or withdraw from it.”4 He noted that “the
Philippines would violate its obligations under international human rights law if it
reintroduced the death penalty,” and he appealed to lawmakers in the Philippines “to uphold
the international human rights obligations of the Philippines and maintain the abolition of the
death penalty.”5
5. In 2017, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial executions reminded the State Party that it has an obligation under the Second
Optional Protocol “to stay away from this form of punishment and cannot legally reintroduce
it in its jurisdiction.”6 They noted that after ratifying the protocol, “State authorities ha[d]
also expressly confirmed on numerous occasions its validity and binding nature on the

1
U.N. Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of the Philippines, adopted
by the Committee at its 106th session, UN Doc. CCPR/C/PHL/CO/4, 13 Nov. 2012, ¶ 5.
2
Human Rights Committee, Fifth periodic report submitted by the Philippines under article 40 of the Convention,
due in 2016, UN Doc. No. CCPR/C/PHL/5, 3 Oct. 2019, ¶ 4(a).
3
Id. ¶ 5.
4
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, Letter to His Excellency Mr. Pantaleon Alvarez
and His Excellency Mr. Aquilino Pimentel III, 6 Dec. 2016, at 1, available at
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/PH/OpenLetterHC_DeathPenalty.pdf (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
5
Id. at 2.
6
UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, UN experts urge Filipino legislators to reject death
penalty bill, 16 March 2017,
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21388&LangID=E (last visited 7 Jan.
2020).

2
 Philippines, without raising any concerns over the procedure through which it had been
ratified.”7 The experts concluded that reinstatement of the death penalty would be “in clear
violation of [the Philippines’] obligations under the protocol.”8
6. After campaigning on the issue in 2016, in July 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte again called
on Congress to reinstate the death penalty, focusing in particular on drug-related offenses.9
Lawmakers thereafter introduced legislation to reinstate the death penalty,10 filing at least 19
bills by the end of the year.11 One bill would allow the death penalty for crimes including
treason, certain types of bribery, “plunder,” drug offenses, murder, robbery involving
violence or intimidation, rape, piracy, kidnapping, and certain types of arson,12 while another
would allow the death penalty for drug trafficking and drug manufacturing,13 and another
would allow the death penalty for qualified trafficking in persons.14 Of the 19 bills that
lawmakers introduced in 2019, 15 target drug trafficking or other drug-related offenses.15
7. Suggested questions:
• What measures has the State Party taken to ensure that lawmakers are familiar
with the State Party’s obligations under Article 6 of the ICCPR and the Second
Optional Protocol, as well as the Committee’s General Comment 36, which
emphasizes, inter alia, that State Parties to the ICCPR “that have abolished the
death penalty . . . are barred from reintroducing it.”16?
• What measures has the State Party taken to ensure legal clarity among all
branches of government on the status of Article 6 and the Second Optional
Protocol?

7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Amnesty International, Philippines: President’s call to revive death penalty will only worse climate of impunity, 22
July 2019, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/07/philippines-president-call-revive-death-penalty-only-
worsen-climate-of-impunity/ (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
10
See, e.g., 4 death penalty bills filed at Senate, GMA News Online, 5 July 2019, available at
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/699994/4-death-penalty-bills-filed-at-senate/story/ (last visited 7
Jan. 2020); Antonio Contreras, Why Imee Marcos must oppose the death penalty, Manila Times, 2 Jan. 2020,
available at https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/01/02/opinion/columnists/why-imee-marcos-must-oppose-the-death-
penalty/670067/ (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
11
Maria Corazon A. De Ungria & Jose M. Jose, The war on drugs, forensic science and the death penalty in the
Philippines, Forensic Science International: Synergy, Vol. 2, at 32-34, available at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2019.11.002 (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
12
Antonio Contreras, Why Imee Marcos must oppose the death penalty, Manila Times, 2 Jan. 2020, available at
https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/01/02/opinion/columnists/why-imee-marcos-must-oppose-the-death-
penalty/670067/ (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
13
Bato to push for Senate hearings on revival of death penalty, GMA News Online, 4 Jan. 2020, available at
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/721055/bato-to-push-for-senate-hearings-on-revival-of-death-
penalty/story/ (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
14
Darryl John Esguerra, Duterte wants crimes linked to child trafficking tagged as non-bailable offenses,
Inquirer.net, 27 Sept. 2019, available at https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1170345/duterte-wants-crimes-linked-to-child-
trafficking-tagged-as-non-bailable-offenses (last visited 8 Jan. 2020).
15
Maria Corazon A. De Ungria & Jose M. Jose, The war on drugs, forensic science and the death penalty in the
Philippines, Forensic Science International: Synergy, Vol. 2, at 32-34, available at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2019.11.002 (last visited 7 Jan. 2020).
16
Human Rights Committee, General comment No. 36, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/36, 3 Sept. 2019, ¶ 34.

3
 • What steps has the State Party taken to ensure that lawmakers are familiar with
the Committee’s interpretation of Article 6 to limit applicability of the death
penalty to “crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing,”17 as specified
in General Comment 36?

17
Id. ¶ 35.